


Consciousness = Duality Squared

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Demonstuck [56]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Demonstuck, Drug Use, F/M, Horror, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Multi, Prompt: Delirium, Promptober, Sort Of, Zombies, no one is actually dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 17:56:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20878340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: You want to scream, as Eridan's cold hands leave your wrist and he pulls himself through the water—you can't call it swimming, the dead don't swim and there's no way the deep cut through his throat and across his gills would leave him alive, there's no way he could be trailing that much dark blood through the water around the three of you and be alive—to drape his arms around FF's neck and stare at you over her shoulder. What he gives you is a smile—he's not decomposed enough to lose chunks of his face.Sollux has a bad trip. (Or something to that effect.)





	Consciousness = Duality Squared

It's a bad trip. You've had this happen more times than you'll ever care to count. 

Except this time you're aware of not only a duality of realities—you slumped over your desk with your face pressed against the keyboard and the monitor bluescreened above you because you've jolted the poor computer with psionics close enough to disrupt delicate electronics at least one and probably a few times vs. whatever the fuck this hallucination happens to be—but a doubled duality, at least four things that are all happening at once without coming close to touching each other. That's another fucked-up datum; it's not like you're just interpreting stimuli through a filter of whatever the fuck that last joint was laced with, you are actively experiencing multiple sets of stimuli for no obvious reason. 

Fuck. You've just decided that you don't like being able to think rationally while you're this high. Are you even high? 

Well, _some_ of you is. Are. Whatever. 

You're facedown and drooling on your keyboard. You're wrapped in the coils of a nest of snakes as large as the world, black inky scales with no heads, sinking deeper as they start to digest you. You're lying somewhere that isn't anywhere, eyes closed as you watch the other three versions of yourself. 

Focus on one. _One._ The one where you're in the water. That's safe, right? The water's always been safest, even when it's killing you it’s the safest place to be. 

It's not killing you now, anyway. Just lapping at your feet. Where the fuck are your shoes? The version of you that's surrounded by serpentine coils (Sollux Beta, you decide to call him) has shoes on, why the fuck do you not get—

Shit, you weren't going to think about the other versions of yourself. That's how you lose your shit, and the point of dipping into your stash is to do the exact opposite of losing your shit. FF needs a good night's sleep and she sure as fuck won't get it if you're having telekinetic nightmares. 

Then again...the baseline version of you (assuming that's the one who's passed out in front of his computer) hasn't so much as twitched since the lion's share of your consciousness settled in this reality. Maybe you can only fully maintain one at a time—

You feel something deep and unpleasant lance through you as something that isn't a mouth latches onto Sollux Beta's leg, shredding cloth and piercing his skin deep enough that you swear he's got to have a hole in him all the way to the bone. Except it's not _him_, not really. It's you. They're all you.

It's way too fucking easy to get complacent just because you can pick and choose between which version of this delirium you're going to fully participate in. Unless...

Hey, water blocks your innate powers, right? It's worth a try. What's the worst that could happen?

You should probably examine the possible answers to that question. Instead of doing that, you shrug and wade out into the water. 

It could be a lake, you think for the first twenty steps. Then you're chest-deep, and a slightly bigger wave slaps you in the face, and your mouth is full of water that tastes like salt and dead fish. 

Ew. 

_Okay, how about I not drown._

Yeah, that's a fair point. You back up a couple steps, waist-deep instead of chest-deep, and struggle with the need to start shivering before giving up on that and wrapping your arms around your torso so at least it's not so _obvious_. Not that there's anyone to see, but still. You're a stubborn and vain motherfucker half the time, fuck off. 

The water's not blocking your perception of the other three realities. You don't know why you thought it would. The splinter of you that's just observing is fucking emanating mocking disdain. He can fuck right off—he's you, after all, he would've thought it was a decent idea. Except he didn't. Obviously. 

Great, now you're soaking wet, freezing cold, _and_ you're getting a headache. Un-fucking-fair. Maybe you can just—

You lose your train of thought when a hand clamps down around your ankle and pulls hard enough to drag you off your feet. That's got to be what happens—you feel the hand, gripping like nothing but human or humanoid fingers can, and then the water's closing over your head—but when you kick and the hand lets go, you can't find the bottom. The first surge of panicked thrashing gets you back to the surface, you cough out water and gasp in air, but when you try to stand you realize that anything other than sinking or treading water isn't exactly an option. 

_Shit._ This is a _really_ bad trip. When you're not actively trying to off yourself, you _hate_ being in the water on your own. With ED and FF it's not so bad—they'd never let you go under for more than a second, even if you wanted to—but in a hallucinatory sea with no fucking land in sight and something malevolent somewhere underneath you? No fucking thanks. 

"I'm fine, I'm fine, nothing'th here, I'm fine, it’th fine—" 

You hear your own shaky voice and clamp your mouth shut. Do _not._ You're Sollux fucking Captor, you don't do that. If you're going to dream-die, you'll do it with dignity, or at least with your mouth shut. 

Isn't it supposed to be "if you die in a dream, you die in real life?" That was a plot point in some stupid-ass movie you watched at the hunters' safehouse. Stupid eighties' shit. What the fuck was up with that decade, anyway? Halfassed special effects and—

It's not just a hand on your ankle this time. This time, hands wrap around your wrists, holding you upright as something that's nothing like skin twines around your legs and drags you down. You close your eyes out of reflex and the knowledge that salt water _burns_, but open them again when a hand brushes against your cheek. 

It's colder than the water, which makes sense when you open your eyes and see Feferi grinning at you. No—not grinning. Just because you can see teeth doesn't mean that's a smile. It's not her hands on your wrists, but it's her inhumanly, impossibly long hair wound around your legs. 

_No._ You want to scream, as Eridan's cold hands leave your wrist and he pulls himself through the water—you can't call it swimming, the dead don't swim and there's no way the deep cut through his throat and across his gills would leave him alive, there's no way he could be trailing that much dark blood through the water around the three of you and be alive—to drape his arms around FF's neck and stare at you over her shoulder. What he gives you _is_ a smile—he's not decomposed enough to lose chunks of his face. 

Maybe he hasn't been dead as long. Or maybe he's just been deeper, where there's less wildlife that'll take a testing bite from something out of the ordinary. 

You're running out of air. 

_It's all right,_ Feferi tells you. You don't know how she can speak with her face half eaten away, but then again the way that the mer speak underwater is more magic than mundane anyway. If she can move, why the fuck shouldn't she be able to speak to you? _We've got you. Trust us._

Yeah, fuck that. 

You thrash in her grip, and she lets you go. You get a look at how ED's face twists up in irritation; then you squeeze your eyes shut and struggle for the surface. 

The air's colder, this time. It burns in your throat as you gasp in one breath, two, three; then Eridan seizes your legs and pulls you back under. You know it's him and not her because you feel his nails dig into your thighs; she keeps hers shorter, she— 

She trails her fingers down your face and you feel something sharper than fingernails, bone poking through flesh. 

You will not open your eyes. 

_Open your eyes, Sollux._

You won't. You can't. 

_It's just us,_ Eridan adds, silky and smooth as his grip loosens enough that you could almost believe the pressure of his hands counts as a caress. _We love you, Sol, all you have to do is—_

Again! Fuck that! 

They don't let you go when you start struggling this time, though. You don't know if it's because ED's got you and he's more stubborn than FF, or because you've already had your one second chance, or because—

Eridan's fingers dig into the muscle of your leg and you howl even though you know it's the last thing you should do (or maybe the last thing you're going to do) and half the air in your lungs escapes in bubbles that seem to rip past your face like they're trying to force your eyes open. Which—

_Open your eyes._

_Open your eyes, Sol._

_Look at us._

_Look at me._

_Sollux..._

There's two voices. There's twice two voices. There's too fucking many voices and they all belong to your lovers. There's— 

No. Fuck that. There’s something wrong; take a step out of this reality and into another—not the one where you're passed out, not the one where you're dying in the grip of something that could eat the world—step back and out of yourself, step into your own head, be the god-fucking-damn observer. 

You can only do that for a second. Even with his eyes closed—with your eyes closed—it's so _bright._ A second's all it takes, though; that's all the time you need to sort out the voices and realize that there's really only one, and it sure as fuck isn't anyone who has any kind of claim on you. 

Psionics don't work underwater, of course. Something about electricity and water, or about the intricate and subtle interplay between magic and moving seawater, or about your specific parentage on the side that isn't your dad—whatever. It doesn't matter why you can't call sparks when you're in water; you just can't. 

But, see. First of all, this water isn't real. None of this shit is real. Unreal water can probably block your powers just as well as real water, but you have another point to fall back on—only half of half of you is _in_ the water. 

Half of half of you is underwater and drowning. Half of half of you is dying and being eaten by a thing with no mouths and a stomach the size of a galaxy. Half of half of you is uncaring, passive, doing nothing but watching. Half of half of you is unconscious and oblivious to all this shit, which fucking sucks because he's the one who smoked the weed that started it—but then again he's going to be the one who handles the aftermath—wait, no, you're all going to have to, you can't just distance yourself from yourself like that—

For fuck's sake. Sure, you can think fast, but the demon that's trying to burrow into your mind and make itself a space there is just as fast, so stop fucking thinking and _act._

Acting is kind of like thinking, anyway. You stop fighting and dive deeper instead, let the fucker think you've given in just until it lets down its defenses so it can tear your psyche apart. 

Then you scream with all your body and all of your mind, rip the walls between the halves of yourself apart with lightning that this bastard won't ever be able to harness, and drag all of yourself into one semi-coherent whole again. 

Well. Not really coherent at all, if you're going to be honest. You jerk awake violently enough to tip your desk chair over, try to catch yourself and succeed just enough that when you retch out cold foul water onto the floor you're not _technically_ throwing up all over yourself. 

"Sollux?" 

Ah, shit. Feferi. You should probably deal with her. 

Instead of doing that, you send a surge of psionic force over at the light switch. (There are sparks when you do that, but the light goes on. You suspect it won't be going off until you rewire the switch.) FF's already out of bed and on her feet; you're way too relieved to see that there aren't bones showing through her skin as she reaches for you. It'd probably be really fucking nice to take the comfort that she's planning on giving you, but you've got more pressing issues than the need to get fussed over. 

There's a baggie on your desk with your name written on it in bright purple sharpie. You spit out another mouthful of water and push yourself up enough that you can see it, or the corner of it at least, and bare your teeth at the damn thing, sending every ounce of your power at it. 

FF yelps in surprise as the contents of the baggie flare with bright blue flames. Wait. Shit.

You probably should have taken it off the (wooden) desk first. Eh, fuck it, she's already grabbing the fire extinguisher out from under the bed, you're totally allowed to collapse onto the floor and let your eyes shut again. Explaining all this shit can wait until after you wake up, and maybe after you beat the shit out of Cronus for not looking into where he gets his weed. 

You almost hope he smokes some of it before you get your hands on him. That way you'll actually have a reason to kick his ass above and beyond pure revenge for fucking up your night.


End file.
